Parental Responses to Child-Diagnosis of Neurodevelopmental Disorder

Abstract

Parental responses range in presentation and severity after receiving a child-diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental disorder. Diagnosis-related grief is a form of living loss and is less comprehended by society, resulting in an unrecognized grieving process. Responses parents may experience include a struggle towards optimism, hope, and acceptance of the diagnosis and an inability to utilize functional coping mechanisms. In addition, parents may face adversities such as guilt, stress, blame, isolation, uncertainty, and beliefs of incompetency. Counselling implications in the following manuscript include psychoeducation, parent training, and peer support interventions towards fostering parental self-efficacy. Further research recommendations include continued exploration of long-term outcomes of ambiguous loss and chronic sorrow parents may experience after a living loss.